


Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride

by whaleofatime



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And a discussion of the remedy to that, Domestic Fluff, Japan, M/M, Self-Doubt, Sometimes a man just wants another man, To get him a too-opulent dessert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleofatime/pseuds/whaleofatime
Summary: Shiro sorarelyasks for anything, that the one time he half-mumbles about a sleepy desire for the Double Egg Triple Cream Supreme Pudding Cup, it leads to Keith tearing across Yokohama like a storm in pyjama pants to get it for him.Or,In these post hunter-gatherer times, Keith almost loses his mind at his inability to procure a simple dessert for a sublime man.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86





	Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride

Things have been going... well.

Things have been going  _ so well _ that half the time Keith is ecstatic to the point of absolute lunacy, and the other half he's morose as anything because surely, surely this cannot last.

The unbearably kind, unbearably handsome teaching assistant said yes to dating him (him!! Keith!!) after only being asked once, and without Keith needing to prove himself at any point. Yes, Shiro was one of the first people he met on his first day at university, a beacon of light and hope at Orientation Week, sitting at the Q&A booth in a crisp dress shirt and a benevolent smile as he fielded questions from anxious sweaty new students on everything from the location of the cafeteria to what the dropout rates on a year by year faculty by faculty basis were.

Keith had been there, forcing out through gritted teeth that he can't access the online system because his ancient laptop had died and his phone was many things except for smart, and Shiro had grinned at him, plopped a 15 Minute Break sign on the table, and smuggled Keith into the library using his own student card.

(He also logged Keith on the computer using his own username and password that he wrote neatly on a bit of notepad. "I use a different password for everything, so don't get any ideas," Shiro had told him with a soft laugh in his voice. "But I know you guys need to register on the system before you get given access to the library and computer rooms, so take your time." Shiro had pulled his lanyard with his student card off his neck, graceful despite just the one arm, and when he handed it over to Keith with a wink, Keith-

Keith was a goner.)

Keith hadn't expected Shiro to keep on being good, _so_ good, for so long. Always there to lend a helping hand even when it's the only one he's got, slow to anger quick to forgive, smile dazzling and teeth flashing when he's smiling and when he's getting a shitty professor to back off from tormenting students.

There are so many people harbouring so many degrees of love and lust for this stellar man, and though Keith had realised early on that Shiro was at least fond enough of him to stop him for a chat when they ran into each other, and grew fonder still that they started to go out for meals and work together in the labs and go catch movies together, he had kept the hope for something more out of his system because that way despair lies.

It was a system that had been working out for him, but blink and you'll miss it, almost 4 years come and go, and Keith gets accepted into a grad programme on a full scholarship, which is  _ amazing _ .

But it's at a different university, whereas Shiro just got offered an adjunct professorship once he completes his post-doc, and the concept of not getting to see Shiro most days, not having an excuse to visit the astrophysics lab or bring a mug of hot chocolate to the computer room to surprise Shiro with, it had all gotten too much.

A week before his thesis submission was due, high on fatigue and seeing in triplicates, Keith had been woken up by a gentle hand at his shoulder, Shiro squeezing and wincing in sympathy at the tightness in the muscles from Keith's weird unconscious slump across the library table. He had looked at Shiro who had looked at him, and in a moment where 15 different emotions battled against an overfull bladder, Keith had grabbed Shiro by the wrist, looked at him imploringly through red-rimmed eyes, and said, "Will you please let me take you out on a date?" in a voice far too loud for a library.

There was a pause where the Universe held its breath and Keith thought he was maybe dying, but then Shiro had turned a bright brilliant red, and said yes.

That was 6 months ago, and it’s been going great, and Keith already _knows_ that Shiro is as good as good gets, but he still doesn’t know how to make sure Shiro doesn’t wake up one day and realise how much higher his standards should be.

Sure, they’re co-signed on the lease of an apartment in Yokohama, close to a train station somewhere between their respective universities. Sure, Shiro has met his mother when she came up to help him move and Keith’s been going to the Shirogane family home in Nagano religiously during winter break for literal years. Sure, everyone that they care to tell about their relationship already knows and are wholly happy for them.

But how can Keith crystallise it further, make it even clearer to Shiro that whatever else Keith may lack, he does not and will never have a shortage of willingness to try and be better for him? 

He’s pretty sure Shiro doesn’t know about Keith’s crippling self-doubt, and knows that Shiro has things that he struggles with, things that Keith can’t just punch out. He wishes it were easier, he wishes he could just  _ do  _ something-

In his arms, Shiro grumbles a little bit, Keith having tensed up. “Baby?” Shiro whispers into the dark of their tiny bedroom. “Keith, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Keith murmurs, moving his arm up to stroke through Shiro’s hair. “It’s nothing. Just thinking ‘bout stuff.” He presses a kiss to Shiro’s temple, because it’s a privilege he’s allowed and he wants to cash in for as long as he can.

Shiro groans and shuffles around, blinking at the green font of their electronic alarm clock. “It’s 3 AM. What’d I tell you about thinking heavy things past 1, huh?” With a huff, Shiro rolls back to face Keith, flicking him on his forehead. “You get hangry, and then you start psyching yourself out.”

Despite his gloomy thoughts, Keith laughs. “You get hangry,” he corrects Shiro, nipping his jaw. “You get hangry, and then you just get angry because you know you’re gonna have to wake up real soon for your morning workout.” Though Shiro might have a point; it's been a bad night and Keith’s been sleepless and worrying for hours now. A snack break before a bit more brooding might be a good idea. “Do you want anything, Shiro?”

He  _ meant _ , from the kitchen. But Shiro had been settling down, ready to fall back to sleep, and had muttered “Sure would love that fancy pudding we tried last month,” and it had struck Keith like a bolt from the blue.

An opportunity to provide! Nothing soothes Keith so much as taking direct action, and this was about as direct a request as you could hope to get from someone as fiercely-independent as Shiro. Keith’s leaping out of bed even before his brain had finished processing the thought, and he only pauses in pulling a sweatshirt over his head when he hears Shiro groaning unhappily. “Shiro? Did I knock you while I was getting out of bed?”

Shiro doesn’t reply until he’s sat up, sheets pooling on his lap, looking sweet and disheveled in fleecy plaid pyjamas. “The problem is you getting out of bed at all. What’s going on, Keith?” He can’t stifle a yawn, and Keith feels deep peace inside him.

It’s like an endless supply of cute cat videos fed directly into his veins, is looking at Shiro. Dressed with his wallet in his pocket, Keith trips over an errant bedroom slipper to lean over and give Shiro a quick kiss on the lips. “I want to be good to you,” he says earnestly, a condensed version of the desperate feelings that have kept him company since he met Shiro, “so I’m going to run out and get you that pudding.”

Keith thinks this is a reasonable thing to say, and a reasonable thing to want to do, but Shiro looks at him and he looks a little sad and that is the opposite of the optimal outcome, oh my god.

Shiro doesn’t press for any further explanation, just tugs Keith down by his collar for a longer, deeper kiss. “You’re always good to me, Keith,” he says like he’s trying to make this extremely clear, “pudding or no pudding. But if you insist on buying me a treat at ass o’clock in the morning….” He settles back in bed, smiling hugely. “I’m maybe okay with being spoiled right now. Hurry back, Keith.”

By the time the front door slams shut, Keith’s already two floors down, barrelling down the stairs like he’s half-feral and on the hunt.

-

Yokohama is  _ full  _ of convenience stores, and there are five within a 20-minute walk of their apartment.

Keith blows through all five in less than 15 minutes, because tonight on all accursed nights, nobody seems to have the Double Egg Triple Cream Super Supreme Pudding Surprise, not even in the back, not even under intense interrogation by a wild-eyed Keith.

Shiro texts him to ask where he is, probably expecting Keith to be heading back already, but Keith is miles away from home by now, keeping up a brisk jog to go to the next 7/11. Keith’s trying to be quick about it, because Shiro is still going to wake up at 6 to go work out, and this little escapade’s gone from a quick jaunt to an act of actively stealing sleep from a man who most certainly doesn’t get enough of it.

Instead of answering, Keith sends his live location, bursts into the store asking for pudding, and groans so despairingly when he hears a ‘no’ that the kindly lady behind the counter asks if he needs a doctor.

-

Keith calls it quits two hours after he first left home, beaten into submission by the complete absence of The Right Pudding and by the sound of the city waking up. 

It’s a bust; he’s a bust.

His phone battery died ages ago, and sitting on the subway because he’s run 8 stations far feels like defeat. It feels like that first day all over again, going up to Shiro and saying here is a problem, here is something that I just cannot do.

There’re a thousand and one reasons why Keith might be feeling this way; stress from school, an upcoming presentation, trying to find a part-time job that pays more generously than an ungenerous scholarship. Reason number a thousand and one, though, is that he always feels  _ so _ unreliable around Shiro, and the absolute indignity of not being able to be someone Shiro can depend on-

Someone that Shiro can expect a goddamned  _ pudding cup _ from, it’s.

It’s not the best feeling in the world, and that plagues him as he climbs all five floors up to their apartment, cracking the door open quietly in the ugly hope that Shiro had had the good sense to go back to sleep.

Instead, the light is on at the kitchenette, and out of the cold and into his home, Keith’s wrapped up by the scent of warm milk and cheap honey.

Shiro smiles at him from their crappy little Ikea table, no longer sleep-rumpled but awake and alert and serious. There’re two mugs on the table, both steaming, and Keith wonders distantly how he’s kept their usual insomnia cure warm for so, so long.

They stare at each other for a while, across the flat, and Keith’s the first to crack. “I’m so  _ sorry _ ,” he forces out, sounding ragged. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t even get you a stupid  _ pudding _ , Shiro, and I’m so sorry.”

The look on Shiro’s face is gentle, growing gentler still by the moment. He sets his mug down, gets up, and reaches for Keith.

For a moment, Keith sees in triplicates. The reality of now, that horrendous first day at Orientation Week, and an amalgamation of every other time Keith’s felt like things were going to give way only to find a hand at his shoulder or elbow or hip or cheek to ground him, the best man in the world lending a hand (even when he’s only got just the one).

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs. “Baby, you bought a four-pack of the stupid things and kept them in the fridge when I told you I liked ‘em.” He leans in for a quick kiss to Keith’s slack jaw. “I only noticed when I went to get out the milk.” Another kiss to the tip of Keith’s nose. 

There’s static in Keith’s head, except for a vague sense of pride that while he may be a colossal idiot at present, his past self really had his back.

Shiro isn’t done, pulling back to pinch Keith’s cheek. “What did I say?” Shiro scolds him oh-so-gently, “Keith, you are  _ always _ good to me.”

Afterwards, they have a long conversation about the parts they feel they play in this relationship, and make it aggressively, abundantly clear how much they care for each other. Keith gets stars in his eyes, moreso than usual, when Shiro skips his morning workout for him. Shiro tells him he’s never felt more loved than when his boyfriend sprinted out of bed at 3 in the morning in noble pursuit of dessert, so they should just call it even.

Afterwards, Keith almost cries into a pudding cup when he remembers his wild dumbass-ery and Shiro burns his hand trying to make a rolled omelette for brunch, and the world could be on fire right outside but in this very, very singular moment, Keith knows it's going to be all right.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My country's on a lockdown and while I don't tend to get cabin fever, I swear to god I have all of the symptoms of the pandemic all at once right now despite a broken foot meaning that I've been low-key feral and high-key separate from society since literal December.
> 
> ANYWAYS here is a sweet little somethin' somethin' written before the crisis got big mad, to tide you through these overly interesting times. Read more + catch me screaming at the moon on   
> [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cetaceans-pls)  
> or   
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andthensomelion)  
> Stay safe, wash the hell out of your hands, and be good everybody!


End file.
